I've acquired a Mac with a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB of 667 MHz DDR2 RAM, and OS X 10.7 for testing purposes at work. Of course, my first priority is to get something that will install the utilities I use on other Unix-like operating systems, and my next priority is to keep the workload light since I'm at work on December 24th.

I'm looking at MacPorts, Fink, and Rudix. I've ruled out Homebrew because it relies on files supplied by Apple, which exponentially raises the breakage potential.

What are people's thought on those three? Do they play nice with installed alongside each other, or do they conflict with each other?

If you can add more RAM (check here among other places: http://www.ifixit.com/Device/Mac), I would do that ASAP. If you can have more than 4GB, I would run VMware Fusion and install a Linux VM for development work, leaving your Mac OS cleaner.

This is how I do my development for work -- I run VMware Fusion, and I have two Linux and a Windows VM. I use the Mac itself as primarily a Mac (run all my productivity apps, like MS Office, MindJet MindMapper, OmniGraffl, etc.). And I do all my Unixish development on the Ubuntu VMs.

If you're doing MacOS development, of course, you'll need to do that on the Mac.

It's been a few years since I messed with MacPorts, but at the time you had a pretty decent chance of any given package either not compiling or having a dependency that wouldn't compile.

Fink, IIRC, often shipped utilities that were a version or two behind of what MacPorts had, and also took a lot longer to support new releases of OSX. However, it shipped binaries so if it had something you wanted you usually were golden.

I don't think Rudix existed back then, so I can't tell you anything about it.

Buub wrote:If you can add more RAM (check here among other places: http://www.ifixit.com/Device/Mac), I would do that ASAP. If you can have more than 4GB, I would run VMware Fusion and install a Linux VM for development work, leaving your Mac OS cleaner.

This is surplus equipment I acquired for testing in order to better support the Mac users, so hardware upgrades probably aren't going to happen unless I can scavenge parts from another computer. I've got Linux and Windows covered already, so I don't need to run a VM on it.

This was just to see what I can do with the Mac, and if there is anything I can use in those three.

bthylafh wrote:It's been a few years since I messed with MacPorts, but at the time you had a pretty decent chance of any given package either not compiling or having a dependency that wouldn't compile.

Fink, IIRC, often shipped utilities that were a version or two behind of what MacPorts had, and also took a lot longer to support new releases of OSX. However, it shipped binaries so if it had something you wanted you usually were golden.

I don't think Rudix existed back then, so I can't tell you anything about it.

That doesn't bode well. I might as well compile the stuff myself if it's not going to work.

I've heard Fink has given up on binary packages, so it's just source code too. That would have been nice if it was like yum or apt.

Buub wrote:If you can add more RAM (check here among other places: http://www.ifixit.com/Device/Mac), I would do that ASAP. If you can have more than 4GB, I would run VMware Fusion and install a Linux VM for development work, leaving your Mac OS cleaner.

This is surplus equipment I acquired for testing in order to better support the Mac users, so hardware upgrades probably aren't going to happen unless I can scavenge parts from another computer. I've got Linux and Windows covered already, so I don't need to run a VM on it.

This was just to see what I can do with the Mac, and if there is anything I can use in those three.

Ah, I see. My recommendation was if you were going to use the machine for serious development.

For what it's worth, I haven't used MacPorts heavily, but the times I have used it, I haven't had any serious issues. It seemed to work, for the most part, without problems.

If it's got DDR2 memory, then it's got a 945 chipset, which means no more memory, and if you look at Activity Monitor's RAM tab you'll probably see something like 3.25GB available. nVidia-based Core 2 Duo chipsets (like the GeForce 9400 model) all used DDR3 in Macs.

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do.